Tag: Canva

Canva: Let’s Get Visual! introduces Canva as an easy-to-use graphics design site and why authors should use it for visual content on social media.

As you may recall in my post last week, Twitter: Let’s Get Visual!, I discussed why you should use visual content for Twitter and other social media content and promised to review a few options for producing graphical content. Today, I’d like to tell you about Canva.

Canva is a great site for designing custom graphics that you can use not only on Twitter but on other social media sites, offline reports and presentations, blog posts, and much more.

Easy to Use

Canva is very easy to use. If you can drag, drop and click with your computer mouse, you can design great graphics using Canva.

To Start Using Canva

Sign up for an account or log in with Facebook.

While a confirmation email is sent to your email address, you’ll have the option of watching a 23 second long demo video. Watch it. After all, it’s only 23 seconds long and most of us have an attention span that long still, don’t we?

After the video concludes, you’re given the opportunity to try it out yourself and they provide several exercises to get you started. If you need help, click on the Hint button.

Premium images are watermarked and cost $1. All other images are free to use and there is a great selection.

Canva Design Graphic Options

Album / podcast covers 1400 pixels by 1400 pixels

Social media 800 pixels x 800 pixels

Presentations 1024 pixels x 768 pixels

Posters 42 centimetres x 59.4 centimetres

Facebook covers 851 pixels by 315 pixels

Facebook posts 940 pixels by 780 pixels

Blog graphics 800 pixels x 1200 pixels

Custom sized graphics in dimensions of your choice in either pixels, millimetres or inches

Canva Design Menu Options

Various design elements from the Search menu including:

lines

banners

shapes

text holders

frames

stickers

arrows

grids

speech bubbles

and much more

Numerous layouts from the Layouts menu

A huge assortment of text designs from the Text menu

Colours and/or textures from the Background menu

You can also upload your own images to use or you can buy from the premium selection of design elements offered by Canva for only $1 each.

Ways to Customize Canva Designs

replace the sample text with your own

change fonts

change font colours

change backgrounds

change background colours

upload your own photos

Canva will autosave your design.

Made with Canva

Sharing Your Canva Designs

Share it on Twitter using the button provided at the top of the page

Share it on Facebook using the button provided at the top of the page

Click on Download or Link and:

Link to your design using the link they provide

Publish your design as an image

Publish your design as a PDF

When you publish your design, it’s downloaded to your machine.

Canva is fun to work with and the results can look very impressive with little skill or effort.